A Better Way to Market Our DVDs?

We’ve all struggled to figure out ways to increase sales of our DVD programs. And for some time, sales did fairly well when DVDs were offered to the audience at a live performance.

There has been competition, of which every reader will be aware. Hollywood churns them out until we’re about knee-deep in DVD discs, it seems. DVD rental houses, specialty shops, Walmart, Target, gas stations, even the local supermarket display racks of DVD titles for sale.

The comedian, Louis C.K., recently came up with the idea of distributing one of his titles as a video via the Internet, skipping DVD altogether. He would allow the program to be downloaded and completely owned by the downloader—no restrictions, make your own DVD, or whatever—for $5.

Payment was voluntary. Louis C.K. apparently included a little note asking people to play fair, and to pay. It seems that in this case, they did. To date he’s taken in a million dollars since launching the sale early in December. In fact, 50,000 people purchased the video in the first 12 hours of it’s release.

Louis C.K. had a following as a stand-up comic and also because of his show, Louie on the FX Channel. For the $5 program, Live at the Beacon Theater, Louis C.K. directed, produced and edited it himself at a cost of $170,000. It was a quality show he was offering for the low cost.

He spent $32,000 building the web site to make sure that ordering and receiving would be as simple as possible. He has even provided the DVD cover and disc graphic as download files so that you can print your own cover after making your own disc.

The idea that he did it by himself, bypassing the normal distribution channels, is an idea that has stirred enormous interest throughout the entertainment world. Some people felt that he cheated various employees at record distribution companies of jobs, but Louis C.K. says that those people just weren’t needed. Not sure what all this can mean to us, but worth being aware of.